Search Engine Optimization Basics for Entrepreneurs
How Keyword Rich Content Is Directly Related to SEO for Your Business
Ever wonder what SEO really is but were afraid to ask?
SEO is an acronym for “Search Engine Optimization”. It’s the umbrella term for all the methods you can use to make sure your website is found by multiple search engine results pages (SERPs).
Google is the most widely used search engine, but it is certainly not the only one. There are Bing, Yahoo!, AOL, and others.
If your website doesn’t appear higher in your search rankings, then you are missing out on a great opportunity.
The goal of SEO is to get qualified leads and prospects to discover your business when they search for products or services that you offer on search engines.
SEO isn’t rocket science, but it can be tricky
When it comes to SEO, a few important tactics can greatly improve your presence in the increasingly crowded online space.
If you are attempting search optimization on your own or more wisely by hiring an SEO expert, it is important to be informed with certain SEO fundamentals before proceeding.
Search engines try to provide the most relevant results to a search engine’s query. Be it an answer to a simple question like “how many ounces are in a gallon?” to more complicated queries like “what is the best Chinese restaurant closest to me?”
After reading this article, you will have a better understanding of what you need to know before starting an SEO campaign and what your role is if you decide to outsource this valuable marketing strategy.
Know your audience and the content they are looking for
Why content marketing plays an important role in SEO
Let’s first see what SEO feeds on. And that’s the content (text, images, videos, etc.) found on your website.
Since excellent SEO is based on how well your content ranks, as well as taking into account your social media and local engagements, you want to keep smooth content to a minimum and focus on quality.
While it sounds slow, quality content has benefits that go beyond SEO.
Good content is useful in all marketing mediums and forces you to think about your message from a topic and keyword perspective.
The key is to make sure you focus on what really matters to your audience.
It is imperative that you know who would want to buy your products or services and what they are looking for in search engines to find your website as the solution to their needs.
Your initial instincts may be correct, but you may be missing things that could lead to additional website traffic, potential relationship opportunities, or new market segments for your business.
Therefore, due diligence is paramount in assigning your target audience the keywords, topics, and phrases that they use in and around your industry.
Create SEO-driven content
Writing for search engines only often makes your content boring. Usually that strategy won’t help convert your visitors into customers.
It is much better to focus on people first. Make your content as value-oriented as possible and then optimize it for search engine bots without sacrificing the quality of your content.
The underlying content is extremely important. Too many people skimp on content, but it is one of the main anchors that tie you to Google’s relevancy algorithms.
The problem that many entrepreneurs run into is that they create content that “they” think is perfect and sounds great to them, but SEO-wise it can sometimes be absolutely useless.
Being authentic is important, but do so with the reason you’re creating the content in the first place with marketing, branding, lead generation, and of course SEO in mind.
Thin content with errors or duplicate content and spam or spun content can really hurt you.
Instead, the content doesn’t just have to be lengthy, it has to be well-written, keyword-rich, and highly engaging where readers spend a fair amount of time digesting and consuming that content.
Content creation for SEO success
As you create content, you’ll want to make sure each page is optimized for:
• Page speed,
• crawling robot,
• receptive kindness, and
• general search capability.
An initial investment in a site audit or recommendations to establish some initial best practices will save you a lot of time and money in the long run.
You can gather ideas for new content from the questions your own customers often ask, or visit online forums and social media to find questions about your industry, products, and market for more inspiration.
Check out the competition with content ideas to ensure you’re on par with your competitors when it comes to covering topics and questions in the industry related to your business.
Manage your keywords wisely
The key to pleasing both search engines and visitors is to have quality content on our website that includes keywords that your target market would use in search engines when looking for a solution to a problem that your business can solve.
To do this, you want to run your keywords and topics through a tool like Google’s Keyword Planner to make sure that the topics and keywords you’ve chosen have enough search volume and potential traffic to make them worth your while. .
Make sure to consider the relevance of the search to your audience.
The narrower the focus of the topic, the lower the traffic generally. This is often offset by accuracy and audience interest.
Don’t spam keywords!
This also means using different connotations of the same words over and over again within your content.
Google loves NEW content. Keep in mind that websites are liquid, so this is where your blog plays a major role in effective SEO.
What search engines are NOT looking for
Search engine spiders only have a certain amount of data storage. If you are engaging in shady tactics or trying to deceive them, you are likely to hurt yourself and your company’s reputation in the long run.
At the end of the day, focusing on quality content that your target audience can easily find will benefit all of your marketing and sales efforts. Spend a lot of time on the above things and the rest will fall into place.